Application of a novel strong promoter from Chinese fir () in the CRISPR/Cas mediated genome editing of its protoplasts and transgenesis of rice and poplar.

Novel constitutive promoters are essential for plant biotechnology. Although in angiosperms, a number of promoters were applied in monocots or dicots genetic engineering, only a few promoters were used in gymnosperm. Here we identified two strong promoters ( and ) from Chinese fir () by screening the transcriptomic data and preliminary promoter activity assays in tobacco.

Production of purple Ma bamboo (Dendrocalamus latiflorus Munro) with enhanced drought and cold stress tolerance by engineering anthocyanin biosynthesis.

Overexpression of the leaf color (Lc) gene in Ma bamboo substantially increased the accumulation level of anthocyanin, and improved plant tolerance to cold and drought stresses, probably due to the increased antioxidant capacity. Most bamboos, including Ma bamboo (Dendrocalamus latiflorus Munro), are naturally evergreen and sensitive to cold and drought stresses, while it's nearly impossible to make improvements through conventual breeding due to their long and irregular flowering habit. Moreover, few studies have reported bamboo germplasm innovation through genetic engineering as bamboo genetic transformation remains difficult.

Overexpression of a Novel Arabidopsis Gene Leads to Various Morphological and Abiotic Stress Tolerance Alternations in Arabidopsis and Poplar.

With the development of sequencing technology, the availability of genome data is rapidly increasing, while functional annotation of genes largely lags behind. In Arabidopsis, the functions of nearly half of the proteins are unknown and this remains one of the main challenges in current biological research. In an attempt to identify novel and rapid abiotic stress responsive genes, a number of salt-up () regulated genes were isolated by analyzing the public transcriptomic data, and one of them, , was characterized in this study.